an intimate space: noél puéllo

viola almunir

A Black person sits on a brown couch in a white room. Behind them is a white wall with a window and green drape. They are sitting with their left leg crossed over the right, leaning their head on their right hand and their right elbow is leaning on the arm of the couch, and their left arm extended to the side, touching the couch. They wear a dress made of multiple slippery looking fabrics. There are patches of blue, green, orange, and mauve. The bottom edges of some of the pieces are gathered with long brown strips. They wear blue jeans and pink open toed high heels. They wear white earrings and have their hair pulled back.

A Black person sits on a brown couch in a white room. Behind them is a white wall with a window and green drape. They are sitting with their left leg crossed over the right, leaning their head on their right hand and their right elbow is leaning on the arm of the couch, and their left arm extended to the side, touching the couch. They wear a dress made of multiple slippery looking fabrics. There are patches of blue, green, orange, and mauve. The bottom edges of some of the pieces are gathered with long brown strips. They wear blue jeans and pink open toed high heels. They wear white earrings and have their hair pulled back.

Noél and I are sitting together in my room with music softly playing in the background. Candles are lit and we’re cozy. I’m lucky to have her as a close friend and to have been beside her during her many tireless past projects. Her work embodies so many stories and experiences and is unfolded in the most intricate ways. We have eight years of great conversations between ourselves and our friend group that I wish could have been included here. But, I hope this little snippet has something you can take away from and lead you to have a conversation with Noél herself.

What are you most excited about right now?

A Black person stands in a white room, there are 2 windows in the corner with green drapes. There is a couch, a tv and stand, a weights set up, and a vase of flowers. They stand in ¾ position to the camera, looking slightly down at the camera. Their feet are shoulder width apart and angled away from the camera. Their arm is down at their side. They wear a red, pink, purple and blue mottled dress with buttons down the front, a ruffle at the bottom, and a brown leather woven belt. The dress has short sleeves and falls below the knee. They wear pink open toed shoes.

A Black person stands in a white room, there are 2 windows in the corner with green drapes. There is a couch, a tv and stand, a weights set up, and a vase of flowers. They stand in ¾ position to the camera, looking slightly down at the camera. Their feet are shoulder width apart and angled away from the camera. Their arm is down at their side. They wear a red, pink, purple and blue mottled dress with buttons down the front, a ruffle at the bottom, and a brown leather woven belt. The dress has short sleeves and falls below the knee. They wear pink open toed shoes.

I have an overwhelming amount of work that I’m actually excited about and I’m excited to have the presence of the people I care about again. When I was in grad school, and for the past couple of years, it felt very much disconnected just because I moved from a different state. That wasn’t easy compared to undergrad where you can visit one another pretty quickly. And I feel right now I’m gaining access to my friends and family again. But also, this has been the first time that I feel excited for the future and the present. Before I used to feel like I was fantasizing about the future, and now I feel like I’m building for my future.

Being multifaceted, how do you want others to view or experience the work that you do?

My work before college was cultivated in a really loving and intimate space with the after school program that I was a part of in high school. Ever since then, my work has been constantly trying to cultivate the same thing, whether it’s writing a love letter to the people around me or to the experiences that I’m dealing with.

My practice currently is so much more directed into fashion and building a narrative with clothing. People look at my practice and see me as a designer, but that word has never been comfortable to me. But, I also understand the necessity for that word. I see myself as a maker and that’s enough for me. For other people, if ‘designer’ feels like a good space, if ‘artist’ feels like a good space - whatever space others find home within my work in their hearts, that’s important to me too.

Do you feel like you’ve reached a place where your work truly represents who you are or what you’ve been wanting to convey?

An Asian person kneels in a white room, there are 2 windows in the corner with green drapes. There is a couch, a tv and stand, a weights set up, and 2 vases of flowers in the foreground. They kneel on one leg, and have their right leg up with their foot on the floor. They have their hands clasped together on their knee, arms outstretched, and they look off to the left side. They wear a tiered red jacket with white hems and orange sashes that hang at the side. The jacket appears to be knee length over a white button down shirtdress. They wear white and red sneakers with black socks and a silver bracelet. They wear round frameless glasses and their hair is longer than shoulder length with wispy bangs.

An Asian person kneels in a white room, there are 2 windows in the corner with green drapes. There is a couch, a tv and stand, a weights set up, and 2 vases of flowers in the foreground. They kneel on one leg, and have their right leg up with their foot on the floor. They have their hands clasped together on their knee, arms outstretched, and they look off to the left side. They wear a tiered red jacket with white hems and orange sashes that hang at the side. The jacket appears to be knee length over a white button down shirtdress. They wear white and red sneakers with black socks and a silver bracelet. They wear round frameless glasses and their hair is longer than shoulder length with wispy bangs.

A Black person stands in a field next to a wooden and chicken wire fence surrounded by grass, trees, and shrubbery. They are facing the gate, turned almost all the way away from the camera, with their head turned back to look at the camera. Their left arm is extended away from their body to touch the fence. They wear a full length brown striped shiny skirt with a ruffle at the bottom. On top is a brown and white polka dot shirt with 2 long brown bows at the shoulders. They wear their hair pulled back and white dangly earrings.

A Black person stands in a field next to a wooden and chicken wire fence surrounded by grass, trees, and shrubbery. They are facing the gate, turned almost all the way away from the camera, with their head turned back to look at the camera. Their left arm is extended away from their body to touch the fence. They wear a full length brown striped shiny skirt with a ruffle at the bottom. On top is a brown and white polka dot shirt with 2 long brown bows at the shoulders. They wear their hair pulled back and white dangly earrings.

I think I’ve reached it. I’ve dipped my toes in multiple places and have five pools that I sort of go back to every once in a while. I’ve refined the language for each of those five pools and now I have to build it into one stream. I was doing mostly sculptures and installations at one point and mostly 2D work at another point, and now it’s more body-oriented work. Soon, I’m going to be doing a film which encompasses everything. I’m hoping it will spark a conversation outside of ‘designer’ for some people.

So essentially this film will be like the last hurrah for this chapter of your current work?

Yes, and it will be the catalyst to the rest of my work until I decide to change it. I want to be a filmmaker but I want it to be in a way that feels valuable to me. I want to work on the costuming, the space, the installation - I want to be a part of every single aspect of it.

What are your plans for casting and representation in this film? How significant is this for you?

It matters so much. With the work, I want to be part of the conversation moving forward. I don’t want to be in the conversation that is stagnant. Right now, the people and the representation that we have in film and media, specifically in black and brown spaces, showcases a lighter skinned person with a certain body type. Gender wise, it’s always men and women or someone who is still very passing in one space. I think for this film and any sort of film, it will always be important for me to look for representation outside of the normative. I want my work to be a love letter to my people and all people of color. We deserve to have an intimate moment. An intimate space.

I’m very interested in hearing more about your ideas of intimacy and the role it plays in your art.

My work is about race and all these other things, but I’m also invested in playing with fantasy and love and things that are not obvious to the conversations at hand. The films are not going to be like movies in the way where they are scripted conversations. I’m hoping they are a lot more nonsensical. I want it super nonsensical. Like, what did you actually get out of it? What is it trying to represent?

I’m interested in the whole movie arc - meeting the highs, the lows, the complexities, then figuring things out and solidifying something at the end. My brain gets overly obsessive with moments. Whenever you watch a film, you’re seeing how happy they are in this moment. But then, they throw a wrench in you. Such as when the main character gets hit by a bus or her ex-husband comes in again. It’s always setting you up for the moment of tension. I’m thinking about my film and I’m like what if we’re not presenting a moment of tension. What does it look like to exist in bliss? That would be so beautiful because we get so wrapped up in conflict all the time. There’s enough representations of conflict already.

In a way, working on the film and making clothes are very intimate mediums because you’re having this direct connection to people by collaborating and allowing your pieces to be worn on bodies.

This was recent, but something that made me happy during a time when I was upset with making clothes and didn’t want to make clothes anymore, was someone that bought my work. There’s this shorter plus size woman, and she never thought she would have clothing by designers that would fit her body. That was so important for me to hear because she was happy. This thing I’m doing feels frivolous to me in some ways, because fashion can seem like it’s all about aesthetics, but now this woman can get access to it too. And I think it meant so much to her, that it made sense why I’m doing this.

A Black person sits on a white chair on an outside wooden deck, and the photo is shot through a doorway. In the background is another white chair, a green umbrella, and a wooden guard rail, behind that are trees. The model sits with their legs spread and their right arm touches their chest and left arm is down between their legs. The model wears a dress made of multiple squares and patches of fabric. There are patches of green, blue, lavender, green, orange, orange plaid, blue plaid, and white. Underneath are blue cropped skinny jeans and they wear pink open toed heels. Their hair is pulled back and they wear white dangly earrings.

A Black person sits on a white chair on an outside wooden deck, and the photo is shot through a doorway. In the background is another white chair, a green umbrella, and a wooden guard rail, behind that are trees. The model sits with their legs spread and their right arm touches their chest and left arm is down between their legs. The model wears a dress made of multiple squares and patches of fabric. There are patches of green, blue, lavender, green, orange, orange plaid, blue plaid, and white. Underneath are blue cropped skinny jeans and they wear pink open toed heels. Their hair is pulled back and they wear white dangly earrings.

vol. 01
summer 2021

A person smiles a wide smile into the camera. Their eyes are slightly closed from smiling and they have a mustache and a short beard. They wear black round framed glasses, a silver nose ring and gold double hoop earrings. They are cropped from the shoulders up and wear a black turtleneck and a black hat with white bean shapes on it in a polka dot pattern.

A person smiles a wide smile into the camera. Their eyes are slightly closed from smiling and they have a mustache and a short beard. They wear black round framed glasses, a silver nose ring and gold double hoop earrings. They are cropped from the shoulders up and wear a black turtleneck and a black hat with white bean shapes on it in a polka dot pattern.

about the artist

Noél Puéllo is a Providence native, Philadelphia-based artist who is interested in shifting perceptions of intimacy and revitalizing a sense of fantasy through the dissection of queer and Afro-Latinx idenity through clothing construction, mixed media installations, fiber practices, and video. Her work centers the power of physical touch and moves us through a romanticized reality of the discarded. She poeticizes the relationships of her Dominican elders and her own personal stories of existing as a queer, fat, femme, racially ambiguous, trans person.  

Presenting remnant articles of clothing and other props from the film into installations allow the characters a life post-performance. The targeted audience will experience the film’s queer intimacies firsthand and on digital platforms. The aftermath brings you a newly developed world and an ability to center oneselves as the protagonists.

A young person stands with long, black hair, wire-framed glasses. She wears a thin gold chain underneath a white shirt, and a brown and white plaid flannel over it.

A young person stands with long, black hair, wire-framed glasses. She wears a thin gold chain underneath a white shirt, and a brown and white plaid flannel over it.

about the artist

Viola Almunir is the curator of Ayo Makan Online. She is based Boston, Massachusetts.